How Trump’s FDA is advancing Obama’s food policies

The FDA’s approach to FSMA under Trump, for example, looks remarkably similar to its approach under Obama. Earlier this year, the agency delayed enforcing some FSMA provisions, which the Obama administration also did repeatedly and systematically. (These delays are understandable. Critics, including me, have argued large parts of the law are bad, unworkable, or both.) But FDA has also begun to roll out widespread FSMA enforcement. And just last month, Gottlieb touted FSMA as a “key part of [FDA’s] work” on food safety.

Though candidate Trump targeted Obamacare for repeal, he appears never to have given any thought to repealing its menu-labeling provisions. Indeed, Gottlieb has embraced that Obamacare provision. In a key statement on the menu-labeling rules, Gottlieb said he supports them, in part, because he’s a “doctor [and] father.”

Pointed headlines in the wake of this FDA support for mandatory menu labeling noted the Trump-as-Obama theme. “One year after delaying Obama’s nutrition rules, Trump’s FDA says it will embrace them,” reported The Washington Post. “Obama’s calorie rule kicks in thanks to Trump,” Politico declared. “Obamacare menu labeling rules ushered in, with no Trump objection,” noted The San Jose Mercury News.

Gottlieb’s continuation of the Obama administration’s food policies has been hard to comprehend for many who are accustomed to constant press characterization of the Trump administration’s purportedly historic deregulatory agenda and progress, not to mention today’s harsh and hardening partisan lines.

“It hasn’t been easy to get a clear sense of where the new FDA director stands on many food safety and nutrition issues,” Food Dive reported.

Many—me, here, included—have tried. A complimentary New York Times profile in February noted that Gottlieb was bucking Trump administration stereotypes (which, given most of those stereotypes and the truth behind them, is a compliment indeed). And a Weekly Standard response painted Gottlieb as the consummate agency leader and applauded him for staying above the fray that’s swallowed many Trump appointees and senior staff. All that praise seems apt.

Gottlieb has largely avoided controversies or public missteps when discussing agency food policy (though that may be because he rarely discusses agency food policy).

Compared to other now-notorious administration officials, his missteps have barely raised an eyebrow.

Take, for example, Gottlieb’s claim, soon after he became head of the agency, that “The FDA does not regulate alcohol products.” That must have been news to the makers of Four Loko and other formerly caffeinated alcohol beverages, which saw their products effectively banned by FDA. Indeed, Gottlieb’s claim might also be news to his FDA colleagues, too.

More recently, his silly lactating-almond comments drew some fire.

Gottlieb has also avoided rocking the boat when it comes to top staff. His leading food-policy subordinates are both Obama administration veterans. Stephen Ostroff, a medical doctor who served as acting FDA Commissioner under Obama and, prior to Gottlieb’s confirmation, under Trump, leads the agency’s overall food-policy agenda as deputy commissioner for Foods and Veterinary Medicine. And Susan Mayne, an Obama administration holdover, nutritionist, and self-described “pragmatic optimist,” helms the agency’s food-safety oversight as director of FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition.

Nearly every mention on Gottlieb’s anti-regulatory zeal, from before his appointment to today, has focused almost entirely on his stance on drugs and medical devices.

For example, that post-confirmation Vox piece on Gottlieb uses some variant of the word “drug” 32 times and “medical” or “medicine” 11 times, but only uses the word “food” twice, each time to refer to the name of the agency.

It may be that Gottlieb wants to deregulate the specific areas he believes to be overregulated—drugs and medical devices, for example—and is deferring to others in the agency to shape FDA food policy.

There is solid evidence that Gottlieb has deregulated some outside of the food realm. Consider the agency’s move to deregulate home DNA health tests. More generally, he’s also moved to update FDA’s structure and some staff assignments.

But it could also be part of Gottlieb’s stated strategy of deregulating by regulating. While he seems not to have outlined in writing what that approach means, one interpretation is that he’s deregulating in one area (drugs and medical devices) by regulating in another (food).

Wither the “FDA Food Police”?

The FDA did not respond to a question I posed for this piece about then-candidate Trump’s attack on the “FDA Food Police,” and what, if anything, Gottlieb has done to rein in said food force.

When asked to distinguish the Trump administration’s FDA from that of its predecessor, the agency pointed to its Nutrition Innovation Strategy, which Gottlieb first introduced in March. The proposal seeks “to create better ways of communicating nutrition information to consumers” and to incentivize food companies “to produce products with more healthful attributes.” It is open to public comment until October 11.

If at least a good chunk of the proposal sounds familiar, that’s because it should. The Nutrition Innovation Strategy’s goal of “encouraging industry innovation to improve the nutrition and healthfulness of food,” for example, closely resembles then-First Lady Michelle Obama’s work “convincing food companies to improve [the] nutrition content and labeling of products.”

Regardless of whether the Nutrition Innovation Strategy framework is a good or bad idea—or a mixed bag—it would be wrong to characterize it as deregulatory in nature. It’s a stretch, too, to distinguish it from work carried out under the Obama administration’s FDA.

The strategy’s five key elements are modernizing 1) health claims, 2) ingredient labels, and 3) standards of identity; 4) implementing the aforementioned changes to food and menu labels developed under Obama’s FDA; and 5) reducing sodium content in foods (another Obama administration goal).

In other words, the Nutrition Innovation Strategy appears largely to be a repackaging of the food-policy work of the Obama administration.

That appears to be the view from inside FDA, too.

A former FDA employee who worked on Obama administration food regulations and who is familiar with current agency thinking but did not want to be identified by name confirmed to me this month that Gottlieb has embraced Obama era food-policy reforms, but will likely repackage them slightly to leave his own mark.

From all outward appearances, Gottlieb hasn’t sought to advance an aggressively deregulatory food policy agenda. Instead, he’s done mostly the opposite. People I spoke with for this piece largely agreed with my take.

“This is an interesting point,” says Josh Galperin, a visiting associate professor of law at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.“Gottlieb is totally out of step with the Trump administration and it’s a wonder that more people aren’t talking about this.”

In other words, as Zboreak also notes, expanding FDA’s regulatory reach may be more palatable under Gottlieb “if the product being newly regulated appeals primarily to progressive or liberal consumers,” including almond milk or cell-cultured meat.

Despite his campaign attack on the “FDA Food Police,” President Trump’s FDA looks just like that of President Obama. For those who supported Trump’s predecessor and his FDA, this is great news. For Trump supporters and for those who detest Trump but hoped his FDA under Scott Gottlieb would deregulate in the many areas where such need exists, the disappointment is palpable.